LUIGI MAYER (1755-1803 LONDON)

The drawing represents a monumental sarcophagus discovered near Castello Rosso in Turkey. The composition was translated into print and published in London in 1803 in the volume Views of the Ottoman Empire, Chiefly Caramania, a Part of Asia Minor Hitherto Unexplored. With the name of Caramania or Karamania, Europeans designated the southern coast of Anatolia in Turkey. As indicated in the publication’s frontispiece, the drawings of landmarks and antiquities of the region were commissioned from the Italian-born Mayer by Sir Robert Ainslie at the time his embassy to Constantinople in 1776-1793.